I can't find a way to make a flashing cursor effect?
In Cycles you may achieve it (if I got you right) animating the Factor value between Emission and Transparent nodes.


Add your text with dash and convert it to mesh with Alt+C-->Mesh from Text. Select the dash and give it a material using material nodes as pictured below (mix Emission and Transparent shaders).


Go to frame 1 on a Timeline and press I while hovering the cursor over the Fac slider of the Mix shader (set it's value to 0.000 before). It'll add a keyframe to it.


Go to the frame 10 (or any further one), change the Fac value to 1.000 and insert the keyframe again.


Now go to frame 20, change the Mix value to 0.000 and repeat the keyframing process.


To extend the animation go to the NLA Editor and press the 'double down arrows' symbol there.


Finally open the properties panel there (N) and set the Scale and Repeat values. Scale'll increase the blinking lenght and Repeat'll extend the whole animation.